NOVEL NEXT Chapter 147: Hikishin, What Magic Is, and a Humiliating Incident
Last night, I couldn't sleep. I didn't feel safe after the conversation with Esther; something seemed very wrong with the whole situation, so I just stayed awake, staring at the door and getting chills whenever a servant passed by and I thought it was Esther.
And when dawn finally came, I could breathe a little more easily. Esther hadn't shown up during the night, though my relief was short-lived because when I came down for breakfast, she was already waiting for me.
"..." Now we're in this uncomfortable situation, eating in silence. Eve, Syl'Vyr, and Faye look at me with confusion, noticing the strange atmosphere between us two.
"Evelyn, today I will teach you to control your magic better," Esther says, and I notice she hasn't touched anything on her plate.
"..." I look at her, a little surprised.
"B-But you s-said you'd do that in a week..."
"I changed my mind. Thanks to the elite angel I helped capture, I have no missions for now," she says while drinking a glass of wine.
'Elite angel... ah... that happened a bit faster than in the game... It seems the angels have already started actively seeking materials to kill demons... and it looks like they've already begun their espionage mission to see how the demons are doing...' I cut a piece of ham and eat quietly.
"Okay... I'll do my best..." I say, not very cheerfully. Even though learning more about magic is cool, I didn't want to be near Esther for now.
"I'm just going to... finish my meal and go read a little until..."
"No, as soon as we finish breakfast, we must begin. My time is too precious to waste. Are you refusing?"
"...No." I look at Eve, who seems to notice my reactions.
'It's okay, Eve... it's nothing...' I send that message to stop Eve from worrying. Things are really strange, but when are they not? Esther is a naturally strange person.
"..." I push my plate away, not hungry. I'm not in the mood to eat anything now, and just eating this little bit is enough.
"I'm done..." I murmur quietly to her. She places her wine glass on the table.
"Great, I'm finished too. So now, let's go to my personal training room," she says, while I wonder if this isn't some kind of punishment where she'll use studying as a disguise.
But with little choice, I follow her as she leads me through paths in the mansion I've never taken before. Her mansion is gigantic, and I haven't even explored half of it yet, so I just try to appreciate the scenery.
Until we reach a room that looks more like a super magical ultra-resistant vault. The place emits so much magic that I'm surprised something like this is in the mansion and I hadn't sensed it before.
"You look surprised. This is my personal training room. Strong enough to withstand the Demon King's blows... for a while, so it can clearly handle you and me training here," she says as I see weapons and various materials on the walls.
"...?" Esther grabs my hand and pulls me to a more open area. Her grip is too strong; I think she's angry, even if she hides it, though I don't exactly understand why she was angry with me.
"Evelyn, do you know what magic is?" she asks, holding my hand, her fingers stroking my palm strangely.
"...I-I... I'm not really sure..." The game didn't explain what magic was, because Grace already knew what magic was before arriving on the demon continent, which is when the game starts.
"..." She moves her hand slowly, up my wrist until her palm stops above my chest, over my heart. She presses lightly, and I feel a strange pain, as if someone had gripped my heart.
"...You can't even perceive that? It seems you are a complete novice. It surprises me that you can use magic without even knowing how it works," she says, removing her hand as I notice blood trickling from my nose.
'...W-What was that?'
"Evelyn, you should understand what magic is. Above all, for our race, magic is one of the most important things of all. Our bodies, our power, and our souls are formed from magic."
"We need it to exist. We are the race with the greatest dependence on magic, and that is why abilities that steal 100% of someone's magic are lethal when used on demons."
"What I did to you was just lock your magic, and even then you started bleeding. It seems being a puppet doesn't protect you from the biology of our bodies," she says with a mocking smile.
"Magic dates back 1 billion years, but it might be older. It emerged naturally as a form of energy from nature, like lightning and fire, heat and cold. However, unlike those natural energies, magic quickly bonded with living things."
"Uniting with their bodies over a process of millions of years, magic became fundamental to the existence of many."
"Magic is an energy that allows you to bend reality. Think of magic as similar to gravity. When a large celestial body appears, the gravity around it curves, adjusting to its size and mass."
"Magic is similar, but the difference with magic is that it bends, curves, and shatters the reality around it, generating effects that the ancients named [Hikishin], which was later simplified to Magical Energy and Magic."
"Magic, like civilizations, became refined over time, improving, perfecting, and adjusting to the environment. However, Hikishin is unstable."
"And this instability made it interact differently based on the races that existed in this world. With the beast-men, Hikishin improved their physical capabilities but became less potent in their bodies, giving them the lowest magical capacity among the races..."
"But what matters is our race. Our race is the one with the highest affinity with Hikishin, and because of this, Hikishin fused with our bodies and our souls, becoming one over the years."
"Until we reached the present day, where demons are 100% formed from magic, where even our methods of reproduction have changed, with demons being able to impregnate other demons just by using magic without any real sexual contact."
"But what is our strength is also our weakness. Our dependence on magic has made us a race that needs to live in Hikishin-rich environments, or else we will weaken and our bodies will slowly dissolve into nothing but dust."
"Putting aside our weakness to a lack of Magic, the important point is the benefits. By having become one with this universal energy that manipulates the reality around you, we gained incredible magical capabilities."
"Not even angels have as much magical potential as demons. We are the race with the greatest capacity to bend reality to our favor, with the Demon King being the living proof of a demon's potential."
"Demons do not use the Hikishin from the environment; we use the Hikishin from our own bodies to generate magic. While most races use the Hikishin from the environment, limiting themselves to that, we have our own internal reserve of it."
"Making it so that regardless of where we fight, we always have our maximum potential. Demons recover magic naturally from their own bodies and from the environment, thus having two sources of magic all the time."
"When a demon uses magic, they are bending reality with their own Hikishin, and that is why we value so much how much magic someone has and how much they can use."
"Excessive use clearly hurts us since we are fundamentally using our bodies to bend reality, but still, we can do incredible things with this magic."
"And that is why I'm surprised you don't know this, since until now, at every moment, you've used your body when using magic. Your body is the 'core' that channels, releases, and molds the magic." She approaches, holding both my hands and opening my arms, pressing her body very close to mine.
"When you use magic, don't think you are just using a power. Think of magic as an extension of your body. It flows through your veins, circulating inside you, waiting to come out."
"See the magic traveling inside you to your hands. If you can do this, you will be able to see the magic of other people inside their bodies."
"Some more advanced demons in this can even predict what magic you will use just by the movement of the magic inside your body."
"Magic is not a random thing. It is like a precise, immutable mathematical formula that always makes the same movement to generate a specific effect in reality."
"Each demon is born with different affinities and different limits for how Hikishin works in their bodies. And you, Evelyn, have a lot of talent that you are wasting," she smiles with her explanation.
And I understand what magic is, but her explanation, though simple, is also complex, because it doesn't tell me exactly how to use magic or feel it.
"C-Couldn't you simplify it?" I ask, looking down, embarrassed. Even though I understood, I can't just see this so-called Hikishin; I didn't even know about it.
"...Simplify... yes, there is a way to simplify. The only moment when demons, no matter how weak, feel, observe, and mold magic instinctively." She brings her face close to mine and kisses me.
"..." I squeeze her hands, trembling, as she pushes her tongue inside me. I try to move, but she pins me to the floor, pressing my hands hard against the cold ground.
My body stirs; something feels wrong, and I start to cry. My body seems to deny whatever she is doing, and I try to push her away as she explores my mouth with her kiss.
"..." She looks directly into my eyes, seeing my tears, but ignores them as I feel something invading my body. It seems to penetrate through my hands and travel through my veins.
Spreading through my body as I close my eyes in fear. My body is frightened by this, and I want to stop her, but I can't. I feel the energy reaching places it shouldn't.
My legs move uncomfortably, but she moves her knee, pressing it against my private parts and locking one of my legs, preventing me from thrashing too much.
My face blushes as I start to sweat. My private parts grow warm as I end up giving in to the sensation, feeling something approaching, as if something is about to happen.
All my senses seem to heighten as my body grows hot, as if the whole room had heated up. Her kiss at this moment feels so sweet... so right.
Our saliva mixes as I taste the wine she drank earlier. My mind grows confused by what I feel, but I don't understand.
As I feel so good that my body approaches a climax, I feel it coming as I let out moans against her lips.
But before my body can reach that sensation, everything stops. She breaks the kiss and sits on my abdomen as I open my eyes with a strange disappointment.
I wanted it to continue. I wanted her not to have stopped what she was doing. My body wanted her to have continued until she reached the depths of my being.
In front of me, I see something glowing. I look down and see some strange energy dispersing on my stomach. It has a hue of purple, red, and black as it vanishes.
"What you are seeing is Hikishin in its purest form," she says, licking her lips as if savoring what she obtained from our kiss, and stands up.
"W-What were you trying to do to me!" I say urgently, embarrassed, getting up. Despite the strange disappointment I feel from her stopping, my body feels violated.
"I tried to impregnate you. It's the 'simplified' method you asked for. During the moment of pregnancy is when demons can instinctively see Hikishin without even trying."
"Of course, I wasn't going to impregnate you. It was just a demonstration. But your body doesn't know that. To it, you were being forcibly inseminated, so it tried to stop... although your current disappointment makes me question if you really didn't want to get pregnant," she says as if this were a normal thing to do to someone.
'I-Impregnate!?! She t-tried to get me pregnant!!' I am alarmed by this, by how easily she almost put a child in my womb.
"Now get up. We have much more to continue. Now that you've seen the magic, you should have a greater understanding of it," she returns to our 'lesson' as if she hadn't done anything wrong to me.
"..." I bite my lips, feeling humiliated.